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Gibson Accuses Guitar Hero of Patent Violation
robipilot writes "Video game publisher Activision Inc. has asked a federal court to declare that its popular "Guitar Hero" game does not violate a patent held by real-guitar maker Gibson Guitar Corp. Gibson's 1999 patent covers a virtual-reality device that included a headset with speakers that simulated participating in a concert, according to a complaint filed on Tuesday by Santa Monica, Calif.-based Activision in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles."
Couldn't the case be made that this concept is a game (who simulates participating in a concert for any reason other than entertainment?), and therefore multiple companies can realize the idea as long as they do not use terms and images from the first company?
If they had published a game and associated hardware, we could have been hacking the Gibson by now...
You gotta wonder. Why did Dibson wait this long to act on their patent? I mean, how long has Guitar Hero been around for anyways? ...I think I know the answer, and it pisses me off.
Goodbye Slashdot. You've changed.
So I guess they just completely ignored Konami, who's had "Guitar Freaks" machines in arcades for nearly ten years at this point?
Since both "Guitar Freaks" and Gibson's patent have been around since 1999, I wonder which came first. Does prior art still count if it's in another country?
=Smidge=
You'd think that Gibson would have realized that Guitar Hero violates their patent back in 2004 or 2005 when they signed the endorsement deal for the original game.
Post-rock/Ambient/Drone and other noise.
Yes... ask any of the companies who bought licenses from SCO...
mmm... yeah... You see, we're putting the cover sheets on all TPS reports now before they go out...
Patent holders are like the real world equivalent of Internet trolls. As soon as you get any kind of notoriety they randomly appear spouting their trash and trying to get attention.
In this case they're a little less interested in attention and a little more interested in money but the concept is the same. The entire patent system, software or otherwise, is somewhat flawed since it lasts too long and holds back the marketplace which it was original created to help.
They should change the system so you only get five-ish years of protection on research with an automatic extension by a further ten years if you release a product using that patent into the marketplace. This will stop these silly troll companies like IBM hoarding tons of patents with very few actual products.
Here's a link: the patent
Overly broad? Possibly, but sounds like it is applicable.
"Overly broad" would not a problem, and this patent isn't "overly broad".
The problem with the patent is obviousness.
If this is allowed to stand, then for any human activity, people could patent doing that activity in virtual reality, and that's simply absurd.
The whole point of virtual reality is that it lets you do real human activities, but permits you to get into situations that you couldn't get into in real life. That includes performing with a band as much as dating a super model.
From TFA:
"'simulate participation in a concert by playing musical instrument and wearing a head-mounted 3-D display that includes stereo speakers.' The device described in the patent also includes playback of audio and video of a prerecorded concert and a separate track of audio from the user's instrument, according to the patent form."
- Real musical instrument
- Head mounted 3-D display
- Prerecorded concert
VS.
- Plastic guitar
- TV display
- Animated characters
Saying this patent applies to Guitar Hero is like saying that milk is the same as beer. You can drink them both, but the experience is completely different.
From the patent itself:
12. The system of either claim 10 or claim 11 wherein the video display and the audio playback transducer are combined in a stereoscopic head set wearable by the user.
14. The system of claim 13 wherein the audio portion of the pre-recorded musical performance comprises a separate instrument sound track and whereby the characteristic of the audio portion controlled by the source audio control circuit is a volume level of the instrument sound track played by the system.
19. The system of claim 13 further comprising a headset wearable by the user, the headset having left and right audio speakers and a stereoscopic video display, the left and right speakers operably connected to left and right channels on the source audio output and to the controlled audio output, and the video display operably connected to the source video output.
21. A system for allowing a player using a guitar to control simulated participation in a musical concert during synchronous playback of a pre-recorded concert video track, pre-recorded left and right concert sound tracks, and a separate pre-recorded guitar track, the system comprising:
27. The method of claim 26 wherein the musical instrument is a guitar.
I'm not sure which patent you were reading...
Before we know the next corporation patents "An imaginary environment for simulated participating in the act of making love".
Guys we're in real trouble here. We're all guilty. The young ones are particularly vounrable to offending the patent multiple times a day. (We older guys envy the young ones for the favorable frequency. But I digress.)
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
This looks like a classic poster boy for bad patents: the abstract indicates that Guitar Hero doesn't violate anything. First off, they explictly state musician. Guitar Hero players? Not hardly. Second, they state musical instrument. I don't think 4 buttons counts as an instrument. There are also no 3-D head gear, nor headphones involved.
If you start reading the claims, the entire thing falls apart at every level. First off - there's no instrument, and certainly no audio signal generated by the Guitar Hero "guitar", which appears to be the crux of their patent. Then again, IANAIP/PL (IP/Patent Lawyer).
I'm not even sure what exactly they're patenting here. There's no "System" that I can see, other than a very high level concept drawing and what looks like a basic high level distortion processor schematic. I was under the impression that "methods" like the abstract idea being described could not be patented.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Their patent shows that there is a VR headset attached to the player's head (though it does mention a VR 'environment'. I don't think that a TV counts). That would include the video aspect. I haven't read the whole patent, but the experience is quite the opposite of GH. Their patent covers wearing these goggles and playing from a First Person View, as explained in the second paragraph of the patent.
Another problem is that the words "prerecorded video" are thrown around a LOT. All the game play video in GH is generated on the spot.
I think the last problem is that the patent states that you would be playing a particular instrument (as opposed to an input device) so the GH guitar probably won't be covered as it doesn't produce any signals that can be representative of music.
This sig isn't original enough, it's time to come up with something witty...